The city that crawled the world
by GhazzgullThraka
Summary: The Crawling City, Shu'Gohl is teleported to Planetos. Stranded from their homeland, its citizens must fend off for themselves, survive in thrive in these strange lands as a race to awaken the old legacy of Valyria looms over. The game of thrones has gained a new, even more deadly, dimension as the countdown ticks ahead towards the finale.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1. A wizard did it.

"HALT! HALT! SOMEONE STOP HIM!"

Hanniver Toll, knight and witch hunter of the Order of Azyr, tried to forge a path amidst the shifting tide of humanity. A few meters ahead, his companion Armand Callis and their associate Arika Zenthe speared and tried in vain to close the distance with their quarry.

Ortam Vermyre, former ruler of the city of Excelsis. Once a respectable governor, the man had turned a traitor, a servant of the dark gods. A warlock and practicer of the most foul arts.

A wily bastard that refused being caught at that.

Right then, the human press closed on Toll. The witch hunter felt how his body was almost squashed as the mass of bodies convulsed and clashed against his frame. Fighting to get a lungful of air, he saw how the warlock abandoned his range of vision, alongside his comrades.

=== 0 ===

Owain Volker attended his volley pistol, making sure everything was into place. Behind him, priestess Nyoka of Shu'Gohl prayed to the outlandish depiction of Sigmar. The citizens of the crawling city had a strange interpretation of the god king, seeing Him as a strange fusion of a worm and a man. It just gave him chills and made him hope that Roggen and the others wouldn't take so long.

Cries of alarm broke the calm. Owain stood up, pistol ready into action. Next to him, Nyoka rose, hammer in hand.

With a nod both of them sprinted ahead and exited the altar room.

Outside, the plaza was a chaos as some hedge wizard unleashed his powers and blitzed its way to the temple's gate. Once there he shouted as he rose his hands, a silver orb between them.

"The chains will break and the gate shall open!"

With that, the masked man broke the silvery orb and the room was filled with a massive blast of blinding light.

=== 0 ===

"How dare you-"

Viserys had finally exploded in wrath.

Dany had ridden away to take a few moments of calm when her borther barged in, charging in with all his petulant rage.

Then a flash of light blinded her, deafened her. For a few painful moments she desperately tightened her grasp on her reins, so as to not fall.

As she regained her ability to perceive her surrounding he saw it.

Massive, as tall as a mountain, as long as a grand river. Lumbering and massive. A beast the likes of which she had never heard of before.

And it was directed at them.

Cries from the approaching dothraki shattered her stupor but she just couldn't react. At that moment she felt something yank at her. At her mare to be more precise. As she finally got a hold of herself, he saw how her brother grabbed the reins and pulled her out. Their horses raced as the worm lumbered onwards.

The land cracked down, upheaving and flying out as the advance of the gargantuan beast ravaged and chucked down whole swathes of land. Barely missing them.

After a harrowing minute of trying to get away, Dany could see the flank of the massive beast, as well as its far away crown, surrounded by stormclouds.

Dany couldn't understand what had happened. Viserys looked almost terrified.

A part, almost primal, of them did understand though, and cherished what was happening. The blood of old Valyria boiled fervently, eager and cheering the event that had just happened.

Magic had come back, right alongside the giant beast.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2. Plans.

The Order of Azyr had gathered all its manpower to meet the Cult of Sigmar's upper echelons.

Which was to mean that Toll and Callis plus a couple of witch hunters met with Lector Calva in his private studio. The room, located in the heart of the ancient Libraria Vurmia, was as secure and private as it could be.

Calva was a severe looking man, his face almost carved from pinkish stone and his head shaven clean. His hard brown eyes glared down at Armand Callis. The former guard was a Reclaimed, a native of Ghur that had, or his family had, emigrated to the cities that Sigmar's army founded after the Realmgate Wars. Calva was a very conservative man, interpreting that only Azyrite stock was trustworthy, pure. Only they had basked into the light of the God King. Armand's ancestry, for all the man knew, could have worshipped wantonly the dark gods.

Hanniver took off his had, used it as an impromptu fan, before speaking.

"The Grundstokk scouts don't lie: we are nowhere close to our original location, these aren't the Amber Steppes."

For a second an almost incredulous silence sunk in. Almost.

"An entire city, teleported without any of the wards functioning," muttered Talorcan. "What do you think, Esselt?"

Talorcan was a fairly stout and rugged man, with plenty of battle scars marring his face, plenty of which masked by his generous black beard. Clad in rich blue and golden trimmed robes he clashed greatly with the plate armor his lover Esselt wore. The statuesque witch hunter had a fair complexion, with a bountiful golden mane encircled by a silvery diadem shaped like two lightning bolts. Like her companion, she had her fair share of battlemarks.

"Judging by the description of those present in the plaza he seemed to hold some sort of Agloraxi artifact, now those did have plenty of magical toys," she grumbled. "Unfortunately, we cannot do much now without the culprit, can't we? Specially not when we have new neighbors"

The others nodded grimly. Next to the mighty Shu'Gohl was a horde of nomads, a vagrant host of staggering proportions and clearly ill-intent, as the reports regarding the skirmishes the Vurm-Tai tribes, the local nomads that circled around the worm, were having with them. Something was massively off.

Someone knocked the door and entered without. A relatively young woman, of pale white skin and raven wing short hair. Clad in the uniform of the local cult of Sigmar, she made a curt bow that bordered in impoliteness.

"Initiate Nyoka," hissed Calva. "State your reason to intrude."

Hanniver pretty much doubted she was 'just' an initiate, not with the gravitas she carried herself with.

"Calva, most respected members of the Order, your presence is required in the Stormcrown. A meeting has been convened," she said with thinly veiled bluntness.

"By whom?" Asked Calva.

"The stormcasts."

=== 0 ===

Lord Ordinator Kragan Stonehide, member of the Astral Templars, stared at the massive clouds that formed the Sha'gohl, the stormcrown. Almost permanently roaring thunder and lightning, these never abandoned the upper area of Shu'Gohl, where the realmgate of the city stood.

Which didn't work. It wasn't that something went awry in the travel. Just flat out didn't work.

Grumbling, he tried to keep his visions at bay, caressing his mutton chops. Ordinators were as much engineers as they were prophets.

He looked down at the great table. Within the temple dedicated to the God-King he had gathered the city's rulers, military commanders, and religious representatives. Azyrites and Reclaimed. Sigmarites, Hyshites, worshippers of Alarielle and even Nagashites. All gathered, all intent to solve the issue.

They had lost contact with Excelsis. They were out of the known net of cities, out in the wilderness, he explained.

The first to speak was an elderly man, with the most benign visage one could imagine. The living embodiment of kindness one could say.

"We could all sacrifice ourselves!" commented the Nagashite representative. "That way we will all be in the Black Priest's embrace and free our coils from these mundane troubles!"

The man made the brazen statement with innocent glee. Everyone else just went on to give him a murderous glare. That shut him and made him squirm.

"Well, as much as I would love to try mass suicide again, I think we can all agree it's counter productive," said the Lord Ordinator."

"We cannot stand still," said a captain of the city's Free Guild. "Shu'gohl can feed us, but we are not self-sufficient for armaments. We need timber and gunpowder. We need steel and other materials. We need to secure our resources!"

A roar of agreements thundered across the temple. What followed after was the drawing of the mid-to-long term plan, starting with dealing with the massive tide of human bodies that camped by the great worm's side.

"You look disquieted. What did you see in your visions," asked Cathian, the Lord Relictor.

Kragan's voice was dry and cutting.

"Trouble."

=== 0 ===

Ortam Vermyre climbed down the back of the great worm with the help of his sorcerous might. Once down, a murder of crows flew towards him, landing close by.

The flock of birds cawed in an arrhythmic symphony that wavered. Soon the chorus took a more definite and unified tone. The voice of Tzeentch All-Mighty.

"The realmsphere's wards have been breached, finely done," Ortam bowed at the recognition of his work. "Undo the doom, travel east, north, south and west! Undo the doom within shadows of ice and fire!"

What followed next was a borderline rambling of riddles and contradictory statements. The changer of ways rarely bestowed his attention and when he did so, the fortunate soul ought to prove worthy of such.

Ortam wasn't found wanting. His destiny was clear, he thought as he assumed his position in straightening the skeins of fate.

The murder of crows dissipated, melting into a pitch black puddle of ichor. All suffered this fate bar one: a white crow. Ortam took the cue and using his magics he waved a doll made out of magic and the impure ichor that had once been life. Shaping and twisting with sickening cracks, the hunched shape of a bald and blind elder soon came into existence.

"Do travel west, to the final reach of the world," commanded the warlock.

The elder made a crooked smile.

"And then?"

"Oh, I just want you to be a regular advisor," he noted idly. "Meanwhile I need to travel east… to Asshai by the shadow."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3. Parley?

Kragan entered the sanctum in his watchtower. Its walls were chock full with artefacts and lore. Caskets filled with Excelsis' glimmerings and other divinatory items littered the corners. Silver etched coffers bristling with either sacred scrolls, engineering tools and the odd magical trinket laid on the left side. Carpeting the walls were shelves cluttered with books of eldritch knowledge, kept under tight surveillance else they be misused by the servants of the dark gods.

Kragan paid no heed to the tomes nor the coffers. He ignored all the caskets bar the one above his studio table on the right corner. With haste he cracked it open and extracted its contents. For a second the Lord Ordinator stared at the clump in wonder. His golden eyes dilated and his throat and lips dried at the sight. He ran his tongue feverishly as he basked in the strange glow of the fragment.

He held a pure shard of the Spear of Mallus, the legendary fragment of the World-That-Was. Older than time itself, this piece was half a dozen steps above the average glimmerings in terms of potency. Glimmerings were basically refined and watered down versions of what he held. The skeins of fate and the future would unravel into the sight of anyone that consumed it with crystal clear clarity.

It was also incredibly addictive and borderline mind shattering. But Kragan had intoxicated himself with enough strange substances to be…

Kind of prepared at least?

For a second the Ordinator doubted, weighing the chances. For a second he trembled at the prospect. Could he even be reforged in that state he would end up? His mind began to fill with dread. Would he even survive reforging in that state? For a second his mind ran a hundred worst case scenarios, ranging from him "just" dying to becoming a fully fledged walking vegetable.

"Damnation if I fail," he cursed as he made up his mind and crushed the stone without thinking of the consequences.

Present and future mixed, blurred and became one in his mind as a golden myst covered his vision and engulfed him entirely, penetrated every nook and cranny of his braincase. His body spasmed and he felt he almost choked in his bile and felt blood flow from his. Coughing, the Lord Ordinator felt how he lost control of his limbs. Plummeting down, his face smashed against the desk and then rolled into the corner next to it. He felt his body was in ten different places and his mind in a hundred different areas. The Lord Ordinator devolved into a bubbling wreck of wildly wrything limbs as visions of the future overwhelmed him.

A child. Smoke. Ice and fire.

Two hours later Knight Incantor Eleuthia entered into his sanctum.

Her earthen skin wrinkled as her features contorted into a rictus of surprise. With expediency she approached the Ordinator, who was now starting to recover his senses. Her curly hair swung when she got about half a feet of distance to see whether he was okay or not. Kragan sneezed when the locks of hair grazed his nose, coughing a sliver of bile in the process.

"Kragan, what in Sigmar's name did you do?"

The Lord-Ordinator wiped the vomit from his lips and stared at her, eyes feverish.

"Prepare the chargers, we need to sally now. We need to find the Dothrakis."

=== 0 ===

Lord Aquilor Stevran, commander of the Shattershields, saddled Efanora. The gryph-charger, an hippogryph whose wings had been reduced to vestigial elements on their legs, stared intently at Stevran. Her green eyes, a beacon of light amidst the head's royal blue plumage and dark red skin, shone intently. She understood something was amiss.

Stevran made a tired and understanding smile as he ran his hand over the flank of his loyal mount.

"Steady girl, tonight's ride will be a wild one, if Kragan is to be believed."

"Trust me, I would love to be wrong."

Stevran barely moved, his mild surprise lasting for less than a split second. For a second they stared at each other intently. Shu'gohl had two chambers, two units, of stormcasts: Kragan's Sacrosanct and Stevran's Vanguard. With the two being equals in terms of authority, but Kragan being as overbearing as he was, meant they clashed too often.

Stonehide stared at him intently as he scratched his mutton chops. Analyzing him. Trying to figure out what was going on inside Stevran's head.

Behind him, murmurs began making their way into the darkened room of the chargers' stables. One of his pallador retinues and Knight-Incantor Eleuthia, their entrance breaking the awkward standoff. Eleuthia approached, her amethist armor clanging softly.

Kragan nodded, prompting his aide-de-camp to speak.

"We've more or less located the horde's whereabouts, that's the good news," she said in a weary tone. "The bad news is they just met a Vurm-Tai tribe and have promptly started to break each other's skulls, which means speaking with them is going to be a fun task to sort out. We could, of course, wait until on side slaughters the other."

"We will have to wait until the dust settles down, then."

Stevran couldn't think of a worse time to engage in diplomacy outside of a battlefield. Unless you dealt with the Ironjaws, of course. Though diplomacy with them consisted on how hard could you crack the boss's skull.

"Saddle up men," ordered Kragan in a dry tone.

Stevran stared daggers at Stonehide. He paid no heed, just fastened the saddle for his steed and mounted the beast. Once up, inching his torso down and onward, he spurred the gryph-charger. With a chirrup the beast loped and charged into the night.

"It's going to be a long night," muttered Stevran.

"If it were but a single night with that man," chimed Eleuthia.

"Step by step, Eleuthia," murmured Stevran tiredly. "That way the task is less daunting."

=== 0 ===

Khal Drogo charged ahead. He felt his chest swell and contract as his throat roaread a blood curling warcry. Swinging his arakh, the Dothraki severed the head of his opponent, cutting through the dark skin and the wood of the feathery back banner. From the corner of his eye, the Khal saw how the headless corpse sagged from the mount and crashed against the ground, a barely audible clang from the mish-mashed "amour" the outlander wore.

Who were this people? Drogo asked himself briefly before shoving aside the thought. They came from the same place the worm did. It was known that no steppe people would use armor. And the strange zig-zag patterns in their clothing, as if imitating lightning bolts, and outlandish war cries made it clear they didn't belong to the cowardly cities. No, these men had mettle and courage, worthy of even the dothraki.

But not good enough to defeat the might of his Khalassar.

Howling a warcry, the Khal kept charging. His stallion raced to intercept two enemy riders Raising his Arakh, he made a mighty diagonal cut downards.

They were starting to break, some flew and were hacked down by his riders. Cowards and unmanly wretche-

A screech chilled the blood in his veins and drove the nearby horses into a frantic bout of hysteria. His steed neighed and tried to fly away. Drogo took the reigns with both hands and put all his strenght into holding back his mount. Shouting and cursing, pulling with all his might, the Khal barely coaxed the horse to stay put. He barely managed to direct him out of another horse's trajectory. His Khalassar's forces were in disarray now, the steeds fleeing off and knocking down many riders. Most of these unfortunate souls were then trampled by the terrified stampede.

What was happening? What had been that scream?

A second screech pierced the night. Drogo was even closer to falling off this time, but still managed to hold on. More of his riders hadn't had this fortune.

From amidst the reforming mob of enemy riders emerged monstrosities. Over twenty lions with the head of birds was his first thought. Fierce predatory beasts that evoked the image of great white lions. Riding them were further outlanders, these wearing even heavier plate and weapons.

A worthy challenge then.

"Attack!"

With that simple command, the Khal took a deep breath and bellowed a war cry that matched the beasts' screeches, rallying his men. Spurring violently his steed he led the charge as many of his riders followed suit and proceeded to bully their mounts into attacking.

Arcing his torso downwards, Drogo howled war cries, punishing his vocal cords as every muscle in his body tensed and braced itself. The dothrakis massed and charged at the flock of beasts, a thundering stampede that ravaged the grasslands it crossed and drowned any other sound with the cacophony of its advance. The youths, brazen and demeaning of any measure of self-preservation forced their way at the head of the wave.

No punishment would be devised for them.

The monstrous beings tore at the horsemen. Up until then the iron will and bloodlust of the dothrakis had been able to impose themselves over the fear of the horses. At two meters, the hulking and outlandish beings managed to shift the balance in their favour. Spitting clumps of spume and neighing in abject fear, a major portion of the Khalassar's charge disintegrated, dragging the rest of the attack down. The area had become a chaos incarnate as horses fled wildly without a hint of an idea where to go. Riders were knocked down and smashed to pulp by a storm of hooves. And kings of this maelstrom of death and chaos were the enemy riders.

With primal ferocity their mounts hacked and cleaved down the fleeing horses and riders. With brutal beaks they tore their flesh, hewing chunks out of them and reducing their victims to a writhing agony. Torrents of gore sprayed out of their targets, the grounds nearby them turning crimson.

This didn't faze Khal Drogo. He was the Khal, and it was known that a Khal should always fight until the very end.

Assessing the situation, Drogo charged through a flank and targeted a sole enemy rider that had strayed from the main charge. Confident in his mount's terror capabilities, the man had strayed from the rest.

The dothraki's mount cried in fear, tried to fly away, but Drogo reigned his fears in and bullied it into charging. Gritting his teeth, the Khal swung his arakh at the unsuspecting rider.

He cut in a diagonal arc, tearing through the flesh and severing head from body as his target issued a gasping cry before dying amidst a geyser of blood.

The stench was enough to warn the beast that his owner had died. Turning quickly the furious beast flayed at Drogo. The claws rend Drogo's steed's legs, sending the limbs flying away with a glorious crack of bones and an agonized neigh as the beak sunk into the horse's neck and began turning inside out in a bloody carnage. His horse was dying, he had to reack quickly.

Deftly, he jumped and abandoned his mount. Rolling and fighting back the pain from the fall, Drogo muttered profanities against his enemy's family. Turning his head quickly he saw the monster charge at him at a daunting speed, fur stained with blood and flapping into the wind wildly.

He grunted and darted ahead. Closing distance with the beast, the Khal readied his weapon and barely avoided the claw of the beast. It rose, ready to bring his whole bodyweight to crush Drogo, yet giving an opening. Bringing his whole body into action, Drogo went out for the heart. Driving his arakh as deeply as he could, Drogo pushed further with all his might. Parly to ensure the kill, partly to avoid the dying beast's weight to fall squarely upon him. It thrashed, hitting Drogo's shoulder and opening a gushing wound. Fighting back a cry of pain, Drogo kept driving his arakh onwards as the body of the demigryph went limp.

And fell over him. It's crushing weight fell rapidly and pinned Drogo down. The sagging flesh lumped all over his frame, its strands of fur and falling feathers trying to make their way into his mouth and nose. His lungs pressed down into near suffocation.

Fighting to free himself Drogo caught sight of something else.

Another rider, another beast charging at him.

=== 0 ===

The descent from the worm's back was tortuous and slow. The elevator platforms that the city used to ascend and descend were actually fairly swift, a sign of the native ingenuity in machinery, but the worm was so gargantuan than even a brisk pace could take half an eternity.

Gritting his teeth, Kragan fidgeted as he silently cursed the height of the gargantuan worm.

"C'mon...C'mooooon," he muttered ceaselessly under his breath. "C'mon-"

"We are almost there," noted Stevran non-chalantly."Do me a favour, Stonehide, and stop because if I have to hear your whining once more I will speed up your descent with my boot."

The Ordinator and Aquilor shot hateful glares at each other. Since a decade ago there was little comraderie between the two lords.

A soft gust of wind whiped the worm's flanks and Kragan was hit by the strong and pungent smell of blood. Cries and the clash of swords fought their way into their eardrums. The guards atop of the battlements in Shu'Gohl's flanks redirected the beacons, litting the area around them and showing a gargantuan battle rage across the fields.

At a rather short distance two masses of bodies clashed. One far larger than the other

"Just how many are there?" muttered one of the Palladors as she began gauging the mass of bodies.

"Tens of thousands at least," muttered Eleuthia.

"Reminds me of that massive herd of tzaangor we fought within Excelsis' eastern marshes," said Kragan. He sniffled and added. "It smells marginally better at least."

Suddenly a screeching cry pierced the sky, imposing itself over the constant roar of the battle.

Kragan's eyes bulged outwards, his tongue trying to figure out which profanity to utter first.

"Forget about waiting," he grumbled as he quickly stole a javelin from the hands of one of the other stormcasts and took the saddle again.

Spurring his steed, the Lord Ordinator quickly jumped over the lifter. Feeling the vicious current borne out of the staggering speed, Kragan grimaced and arced down his torso, now almost hugging the gryph-charger's neck.

"Faster Gerrik!" he commanded as he kept spurring.

"What is that madman doing!" Hissed Stevran as they hit the ground. "Follow him, before the fool gets killed."

For a second Eleuthia stared at him, then nodded.

"Actually, that last part sounds like an enticing prospect."

Stevran just rolled his eyes behind his warmask and climbed atop Efanora.

The other nine riders blitzed their way across the battlefield, behind Kragan.

The lord-ordinator nagivated his way across the press of bodies. Left and right a host of tribalistic riders noticed him. The outlanders were flabbergasted at such a sight, their mounts reeling back and trying to flee away. The Vurm-Tai nomads also reeled back, this time due to their riders apprehension. The host parted at his path, much like the waters parted when Sigmar split the Waking Sea of Hysh with his hammerstrike.

"Where are you, Drogo…" muttered Kragan as he kept riding, further forcing Gerrik to speed up."Where are-"

At that moment Kragan saw how a Demigryph rider made his way towards a carcass of his kin.

Memories of things yet to be flared across Kragan's pupils, prophecies and gambles of fate unfolding and being foiled in his eyes.

"NO!"

He wouldn't make it in time. None of the futures he saw where this happened had Kragan succesful in this attempt. He only had one chance, one sliver of chance.

Kragan then threw his javelin, praying to hit the target. He coiled sideways his torso and then used that to give the javeling all the momentum his body and muscles could possibly muster.

The projectile speared across the air, humming as it cut through. Upon contact the javelin gored the neck of the demigryph, hitting the carotid judging by the massive stream of flow that exploded from the wound.

"Gerrik attack!" commanded Kragan.

With a powerful leap, his steed charged ahead, soaring through the battlefield and landed upon the demigryph's owner. Gerrik's claws landed upon the battered steel and sunk it into the ground. The armor crumpled and the flesh tore down alongside the cacophony of cracking bones upon feeling the strength of about a ton of weight crashing at lightning fast speed. The charger quickly began pecking and biting at the armor, tearing out segments of the warplate before beginning to shred to smithereens the still living man.

Kragan jumped down, ignoring the cries of pain. Ignoring the charge of his fellow stormcasts fighting around him. He headed towards destiny.

=== 0 ===

It was a literal lightning bolt. Drogo saw how lightning struck down the beast moments before it got to tear him apart. Reeling and gushing blood the monster wailed as it fell to the side quickly. Another beast, this time resembling vaguely a horse darted ahead and loped upon the hapless rider. Soon his screams of abject pain flooded the vicinity.

Other bolts of lightning crossed his limited field of view and shortly after the wailing of these monsters began to mingle with the other sounds of carnage. Then a mountain of a man approached.

As it closed down, the Khal could appreciate just how massive the man was. Clad in an amethyst and golden suit of what the Westerosis called "armor", the man looked like a mountain. He stopped for a second, pensive as he caressed his sandy mutton chops.

Cursing the carcass of the fallen beast, Drogo tried in vain to shove aside the mass lump of dead meat that almost crushed his lower body. Pushing with both of his arms, pressing them with all his might against the lump of meat and feathers, the dothraki tried to shift the weight. He was barely making an advance, but still making it. Then the weight lifted inmediately. Drogo saw how the dead lump of flesh moved away as the giant lifted it, then throwed it to the side.

"I, Kragan,"he said as he pounded his fist.

His language was outlandish, something fluid but with a few gruff hints mixed in. Drogo understood what he meant by virtue of his gesticulation. He was clearly introducing himself.

For a second the Khal saw doubt in the giant's eyes. He then shook his head and extended his hand as he shoved aside the body of the fallen beast. He offered an extended hand as he spoke again.

"I, friend, Khal Drogo."


End file.
